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ORATION 

DELIVERED  IN  FANEUIL  HALL  BEFORE  THE 

City  Council  and  Citizens 
of  Boston 


ON   THE 

ONE  HUNDRED  AND  TWENTY-FOURTH 
ANNIVERSARY  OF  THE  DECLARATION  OF  INDEPENDENCE 

WEDNESDAY,  JULY  4,  1900 

BY 

STEPHEN     O'MEARA 


BOSTON 

PRINTED    BY  ORDER   OF   THE   CITY  COUNCIL 
1900 


US  sj  C2  X  £5 


€  x  i  jj    a  (    |  0  s  h  k> 


In  Board  of  Aldermen,  July  24,  1900. 
Ordered,  That  the  Superintendent  of  Printing,  under 
the  direction  of  the  Committee  on  Printing,  be  authorized 
to  have  printed  and  bound  in  cloth  two  thousand  copies 
of  a  volume  containing  the  exercises  at  Faneuil  Hall  on 
July  Fourth ;  the  expense  of  the  same  to  be  charged  to 
the  appropriation  for  Printing  Department. 

Passed.     Sent  down  for  concurrence.     July  26  came  up 
concurred. 

Approved  by  the  Mayor,  July  30,  1900. 

A  true  copy. 

Attest : 

John  T.  Priest, 

AssL^City  Clerk. 


PROGRESS    THROUGH    CONFLICT. 


Mr.  Mayor  and  Citizens  of  Boston: 

The  men  whom  Boston  has  honored  as  I  am  hon- 
ored to-day  have  come  to  us  in  line  unbroken  for  a 
hundred  and  thirty  years.  The  living  may  not  here 
be  named,  but  counted  with  the  orators  of  the  dead 
generations  are  Joseph  Warren,  John  Hancock,  John 
Quincy  Adams,  Charles  Sumner,  Edward  Everett, 
Oliver  Wendell  Holmes,  Robert  C.  Winthrop. 

If  to  take  up  this  civic  duty  were  to  claim  a 
place  by  the  side  of  such  as  these,  I  had  not  been 
here  to-day.  But  the  great  names  which  light  the 
roll  are  the  few  among  the  many.  Boston  has  borne 
famous  sons,  whose  gathered  honors  repay  her  teach- 
ing, whose  filial  service  rewards  her  nurture ;  but  to 
their  brethren  of  humbler  life,  less  gifted  than  they, 
or  less  ambitious,  fall  those  daily  tasks  and  simple 
duties  which,  done  in  love  and  loyalty,  give  strength 
to  the  city  that  is  our  common  mother  and  security 
to  all  her  days.  In  the  roll  of  citizens  who  have 
answered  for  Boston  on  Independence  Day  the  names 
of  the  great,  of  those  destined  to  outlive  their  times, 
stand   wide   apart.     But     thick    between    are    other 


6  Okation. 

names,  to  us,  perhaps,  unknown.  They  are  names  of 
men  who  made  no  history,  who  led  no  patriot  ris- 
ings ;  but  the  records  of  town  and  city  testify  that 
in  their  lives  they  were  loyal  and  useful,  charged 
with  many  burdens  of  citizenship,  and  honored  at 
last  with  this,  their  one  distinction.  Counting  my- 
self with  the  least  of  these,  their  equal  only  in  the 
love  and  obedience  which  are  fit  offering  from  the 
humblest .  among  us  to  the  city  that  shelters  him,  I 
do  her  bidding  to-day,  gladly  and  gratefully. 

I  shall  speak  of  a  public  peril  which  is  subtle, 
elusive  and  almost  new.  It  comes  from  that  strange 
and  perverse  spirit  which  leads  men  so  to  paint 
the  past  that  against  the  pure-white  background  of 
their  false  ideals  the  present  looms  black  and  its 
shadows  fall  upon  the  future.  It  is  that  spirit 
which  finds  naught  but  decay  in  our  laws  and  insti- 
tutions, selfishness  in  public  men,  degeneracy  in  the 
people.  It  suspects  the  honor  and  decries  the  merit 
of  elected  leaders ;  contempt  is  the  reward  it  gives 
for  their  finished  work,  derision  is  the  aid  it  offers 
when,  through  doubt  and  discouragement,  groping 
as  men  must  grope,  yet  pushing  on,  they  save  the 
country  from  new  dangers  or  guide  it  to  greater 
ends. 

You  know  that  spirit  well,  morbid  at  birth,  blind 
in  growth,  baneful  in  action,  for  its  influence  is 
strong   among   us.     It   seizes    often   the    earnest   and 


Fourth  of  July,  1900.  7 

well-schooled  youth  who  knows  no  history  deeper 
than  his  text-books  teach.  Pictured  to  his  eyes  in 
those  shallow  and  varnished  pages  he  sees  a  past 
that  never  was ;  a  past  radiant  to  him  with  the 
purity  and  wise  patriotism  of  its  citizens;  rich  in 
leaders  without  spot  of  selfish  desire  or  stain  of 
sordid  act;  fortunate  in  a  public  rule  exempt  from 
private  ambition  and  free  from  party  strife ;  a  past 
blessed  with  a  statesmanship  quick  to  conceive  the 
loftiest  schemes  of  government,  deft  in  shaping  them 
to  useful  form,  prompt  to  embed  them  in  the  Con- 
stitution, the  laws  and  the  life  of  a  grateful  and 
unanimous  people. 

Grown  to  manhood,  he  learns  from  the  rough 
teaching  of  the  newspaper  and  the  stump  that  these 
are  times  in  which  voters  are  sluggish,  leaders  not 
all  profound ;  that  there  is  strife  between  parties, 
clamor  among  men,  greed  in  office,  sloth  in  action, 
bewilderment  in  counsel.  They  are  truths  that  he 
learns,  though  magnified,  mayhap,  by  their  nearness, 
or  distorted  at  times  through  malice;  the  same  sad 
truths  that  history  has  told  of  all  generations,  but, 
to  that  past  of  his  young  fancy,  truths  strange  and 
abhorrent.  Moved  by  the  ardor,  the  impatience,  per- 
haps by  the  arrogance  of  youth,  with  slender  knowl- 
edge of  American  history  and  ignorant  of  common 
affairs,  with  ideals  to  which  the  world  has  never 
risen  and  never  can  rise  on  this  side  of  the  Judg- 
ment   Day,   he    becomes,    for    a   time    at   least,    the 


8  Okation. 

harshest  critic,  the  gloomiest  prophet  of  our  period 
and  our  people.  His  revolt  against  things  that  are 
is  eager  and  most  strenuous  when  stirred  by  the 
touch  of  public  affairs;  but  should  he  turn  to  other 
interests,  to  art  or  literature,  commerce  or  journal- 
ism, the  professions  or  the  trades,  he  finds  that 
there  again  and  everywhere  and  always  reality  shocks 
idealism.  Deeper  reading,  mental  growth,  and  espe- 
cially the  moderation  and  tolerance  taught  by  broader 
experience,  lead  all  but  a  few  of  the  young  men  whose 
first  feelings  I  have  tried  to  describe  to  that  highest 
citizenship  of  all,  which  is  stirring  as  well  as  critical, 
acute  as  well  as  honorable,  hopeful  as  well  as  prudent. 
A  few,  unfortunately,  join  themselves  year  by  year  to 
that  body  of  men  who  mistake  tireless  fault-finding  for 
worthy  criticism,  discontent  for  an  active  conscience, 
incredulity  for  wisdom.  They  are  educated  as  books 
educate ;  they  are  respected  in  their  private  lives, 
and  often  held  in  honor ;  they  are  seldom  dishonest, 
seldom  selfish,  seldom  malicious,  and  they  control 
at  all  times  many  open  roads  to  the  masses  of  plain 
people  who  read  and  listen.  They  have  intellect, 
honor  and  patriotism  ;  but  while  exalting  the  virtues 
of  the  past  they  lack  the  courage  of  the  present, 
the  hopefulness  of  the  future,  the  faith  in  their 
country,  blind,  perhaps,  but  splendid,  which  have 
given  always  to  men  of  little  learning  the  broader 
view  and  the  stronger  grasp  of  the  truth  and  the 
genius  of   republican  government. 


Foukth  of  July,  1900.  9 

The  men  who  stand  apart  to  criticise  and  con- 
demn, who  would  lift  the  people  to  a  better  public 
life  by  telling  them  that  the  public  life  they  have 
is  wholly  bad,  who  would  encourage  them  to  push 
toward  perfection  by  pointing  to  the  ground  they 
had  lost  in  a  hundred  years  —  such  men  are  using 
an  influence  made  powerful  by  their  position  and 
their  opportunities  to  deaden  and  dishearten  the  aspi- 
rations of  the  people  for  better  things. 

If  a  pastor  preached  always  that  religion  and 
virtue  had  left  us,  that  the  children  of  pious  fathers 
were  infidels  and  libertines,  that  sin  had  become  the 
accepted  rule  and  sanctity  the  startling  exception, 
that  men  and  women  who  professed  good  lives  were 
hypocrites,  and  that  the  future  held  out  no  hope  — 
the  people  of  his  church  and  the  children  of  his 
Sunday-school  would  find  in  his  preaching  an  ex- 
cuse for  their  own  vices,  not  an  inspiration  to  virtu- 
ous living.  If  a  teacher  should  tell  his  boys  that 
though  he  wished  them  to  be  studious,  obedient  and 
truthful,  yet  schools  and  school  life  had  fallen  so 
low  that  indolence,  defiance  and  falsehood  were  the 
qualities  they  were  expected  to  display,  his  graduates 
might  well  be  idlers,  outlaws  and  liars.  If  a  mer- 
chant should  teach  his  clerks  that  the  traditions  of 
honorable  trade  had  been  lost,  that  successful  busi- 
ness in  these  times  meant  trickery,  fraud  and  for- 
gery, that,  guilty  or  innocent,  all  would  be  suspected 
alike,    his    admonitions    to   an    honest    career    would 


10  Oration. 

be  little  likely  to   hold  his  young  men  to  commercial 
rectitude. 

Likewise  that  critic  of  public  affairs  who  exalts 
the  virtues  of  past  generations  and  magnifies  the 
faults  of  our  own,  who  tells  us  that  political  life  is 
a  cesspool,  political  honor  a  myth,  that  plunder  is 
the  motive  and  first  law  of  parties,  and  that  all 
grows  worse,  not  better  —  such  critic  will  send  men 
to  the  high  duty  of  citizenship  with  degraded  notions 
of  what  that  duty  means,  and  with  ready  excuse 
for  political  sins  to  which  they  themselves  may  be 
tempted.  His  lament  is  the  license  of  the  corrupt 
politician,  and  his  denunciation  of  public  life  and 
public  men  sustains  the  political  boss  in  his  own 
sinister  view  of  both.  The  earnest  young  man  who 
listens  to  such  a  critic  hears  the  same  false  and  dan- 
gerous doctrine  of  general  depravity  that  is  preached 
by  the  bribe-giver  and  the  ballot-stuffer  to  his  will- 
ing but  timid  recruits. 

But  the  critic  is  wrong  and  the  boss  is  wrong. 
The  belief  which  they  teach  in  this  amazing  part- 
nership, which  seems  to  them  to  justify  alike  the 
fears  of  the  critic  and  the  cynicism  of  the  boss,  is  a 
viciously  false  belief.  The  present  can  bear,  without 
shame  or  apprehension,  a  scrutiny  which  covers  as 
well  the  past  of  any  period,  the  past  even  of  the 
founders  of  the  republic. 

Our  country  is  either  better  or  worse  than  it  was. 


Fourth  of  July,  1900.  11 

Its  people  are  more  enlightened  and  its  Govern- 
ment is  sounder  and  more  effective,  or  the  century 
has  brought  loss,  not  gain.  We  have  carried  to 
success  the  experiment  of  freedom  and  equality 
based  upon  broad  suffrage,  or  that  experiment  has 
failed  in  our  hands.  There  is  no  compromise.  It 
must  be  one  way  or  the  other.  A  despotism  may 
live  for  centuries  with  conditions  always  worse,  but 
without  improvement  in  every  generation  a  free 
republic  must  die.  Here,  then,  is  the  vital  quality 
of  that  issue  between  the  past  and  the  present 
which  is  thrust  upon  us  by  moaning  critics  and 
implacable  malcontents. 

I  believe  that  our  hard,  inherited  task  has  been 
well  done ;  that  the  conditions  in  the  present  which 
justify  hostile  criticism  are  better  than  the  like 
conditions  which  the  fathers  created  or  endured ; 
that  constantly  our  eyes  grow  clearer  and  our  acts 
draw  closer  to  that  perfection  of  public  and  popular 
life  which  even  yet,  alas,  is  but  a  dream  of  the 
unknown  future.  History  proves  our  gain,  proves  it 
fairly  and  abundantly ;  but  I  confess  that  if  the 
proof  had  seemed  to  lie  against  us,  if  history  had 
seemed  to  show  that  the  power,  the  patriotism,  the 
dignity,  the  integrity  of  people  and  of  Government 
had  fallen  in  our  hands,  I  should  not  have  dared 
even  then  to  yield  the  cause,  for  such  a  judgment, 
if  true,  would  carry  with  it  a  prophecy  unerring  of 
the  downfall  of  the  republic  in  this  generation,  or 
the  next,  or  the  next. 


12  Oration. 

Progress  through  conflict  is  the  supreme  and 
unbroken  law  of  our  national  growth.  In  a  hundred 
and  twenty-five  years  no  great  event  has  shaped 
itself  in  quiet  unanimity;  no  statesman  or  public 
leader  has  done  the  country's  work  untouched  by 
criticism,  unhurt  by  slander;  no  party  has  been  free 
from  the  discord  of  factions,  from  unfair  attack  by 
enemies,  from  defeat  and  destruction  at  last  when 
its  time  had  come.  Because  we  have  missed  the 
meaning  and  perhaps  the  existence  itself  of  this  law 
of  progress  through  conflict,  because  we  have  failed 
to  see  that  in  all  periods  of  our  history  its  power 
has  prevailed,  the  scenes  in  that  single  act  of  polit- 
ical life  which  chances  to  pass  before  our  own  eyes 
disturb,  disgust  and  sometimes  dishearten  us. 

The  Declaration  of  Independence,  read  here  to-day, 
illustrates  in  its  history  the  law  of  progress  through 
conflict.  We  speak  of  it  as  immortal ;  our  children 
regard  it  almost  as  sacred  in  its  origin ;  but  though 
its  naked  principles  will  live  while  the  world  stands, 
it  was  not  a  divine  revelation,  it  was  not  given  on 
Mt.  Sinai,  it  was  not  written  on  tables  of  stone.  A 
Virginia  lawyer  of  thirty-three,  Thomas  Jefferson, 
wrote  the  first  draft.  He  changed  and  corrected ;  a 
committee  of  delegates  of  which  he  was  Chairman 
changed  and  corrected,  and  then  it  was  handed  in  to 
the  Continental  Congress.  There  it  was  discussed 
for    days,  its    language    criticised,  its   rhetoric    jeered 


Fourth  of  July,  1900.  13 

at,  its  assertions  questioned,  all  in  the  presence  of 
its  abashed  and  silent  author,  who  was  even  accused 
in  later  years  by  some  of  his  associates  of  having 
stolen  his  ideas  from  others  and  dressed  them  in 
phrases  not  his  own. 

How  great  must  have  been  the  change  of  purpose, 
how  sharp  the  conflict  through  which  the  colonies 
reached  this  Declaration  of  the  Fourth  of  July,  1776  ! 
We  know  that  John  Adams  and  his  Massachusetts 
colleagues,  on  their  way  to  the  first  Continental  Con- 
gress, held  less  than  two  years  before,  had  been 
warned  by  Sons  of  Liberty  from  Philadelphia  that 
they  were  "  suspected  of  having  independence  in 
view ; "  but  if  they  should  utter  the  word  they  would 
be  "undone,"  for  independence  was  as  "unpopular 
in  Pennsylvania  and  in  all  the  Middle  and  Southern 
States  as  the  Stamp  Act  itself."  The  sole  aim  was 
to  remain  under  English  rule,  but  with  better  con- 
ditions of  government.  Even  after  independence  had 
been  won,  John  Adams  said :  "  There  was  not  a 
moment  during  the  "Revolution  when  I  would  not 
have  given  everything  I  possessed  for  a  restoration 
to  the  state  of  things  before  the  contest  began,  pro- 
vided we  could  have  had  a  sufficient  security  for  its 
continuance." 

What  was  the  feeling  of  the  delegates  themselves, 
the  men  who  put  their  signatures  to  the  immortal 
Declaration?  John  Adams  when  asked  if  every 
member  of  Congress,  on  the  4th  of  July,  1776,  did, 
in  fact,  cordially  approve  of  it,  replied: 


14  Oration. 

"  Majorities  were  constantly  against  it.  For  many 
days  the  majority  depended  on  Mr.  Hewes  of  North 
Carolina.  While  a  member  one  day  was  reading 
documents  to  prove  that  public  opinion  was  in  favor 
of  the  measure,  Mr.  Hewes  suddenly  started  upright, 
and,  lifting  up  both  hands  to  heaven,  as  if  in  a 
trance,  cried  out:  'It  is  done,  and  I  will  abide  by 
it.'  I  would  give  more  for  a  perfect  painting  of  the 
terror  and  horror  upon  the  faces  of  the  old  majority 
at  that  moment  than  for  the  best  piece  of  Raphael." 

We  hear  now,  and  like  to  hear,  only  of  the  brave 
enthusiasm  with  which  the  Declaration  was  received. 
We  must  read  if  we  wish  to  know  something  of  the 
"terror  and  horror"  of  the  people  in  the  colonies 
whose  feelings  were  expressed  by  what  John  Adams 
calls  "the  old  majority."  We  must  read  if  we  wish 
to  know  that  towns  and  villages  and  families  were 
divided  betwen  King  and  Congress.  What  was  the 
strength  of  the  silent  and  sullen  or  openly  hostile 
minority?  Again  on  the  word  of  John  Adams,  we 
have  it  that  in  the  colonies  at  large  not  more  than 
two-thirds  were  against  the  Crown,  and  some  of  the 
colonies  were  perhaps  equally  divided.  We  know  that 
of  those  so  hostile  to  the  new  republic,  or  so  danger- 
ously committed  to  the  English  cause  that  they  were 
forced  to  leave  their  homes,  12,000  sailed  from  New 
York  alone,  just  previous  to  the  evacuation,  for 
Nova  Scotia  and  the  Bahamas,  following  thus  the 
thousands  of  others  who  had  left  for  all  parts  of  the 


Fourth  of  July,  1900.  15 

English-speaking  world   in    the    course    of    the  seven 
years'  war. 

The  Loyalists,  moreover,  were  not  content  merely 
to  suffer  and  protest.  The  able-bodied  among  them 
joined  the  British  forces,  and  were  the  bitterest  and 
crudest  enemies  whom  the  patriot  armies  and  people 
encountered.  Lorenzo  Sabine,  grandson  of  a  soldier 
killed  under  Washington  at  Trenton,  and  of  another 
soldier  who  fought  under  Stark  at  Bennington,  says, 
in  his  "  Loyalists  of  the  American  Revolution,"  a 
work  published  in  Boston  forty  years  ago : 

"  It  may  not  be  possible  to  ascertain  the  number 
of  the  Loyalists  who  took  up  arms,  but,  from  the 
best  evidence  which  I  have  been  able  to  obtain,  I 
consider  there  were  twenty-five  thousand,  at  the 
lowest  computation ;  and,  unless  their  killed  and 
wounded  in  the  different  battles  and  affrays  in 
which  they  were  engaged  were  unusually  large,  I 
have  put  their  aggregate  force  far  too  low." 

Joseph  Galloway  of  Pennsylvania,  a  member  of  the 
Congress  in  1774  and  1775,  who  afterwards  joined 
the  British  and  served  with  them,  declared  that  the 
Loyalists  of  the  Middle  Colonies  were  ready  to  enter 
the  military  service  of  the  Crown  in  large  numbers, 
and  that  5,000  actually  appeared  in  arms  for  the 
defence  of  the  city  of  New  York.  In  an  address  of 
the  Loyalists  who  were  in  London  in  1782  the  dec- 
laration is  made  that  "there  are  many  more  men  in 


16  Oration. 

His  Majesty's  provincial  regiments  than  there  are  in 
the  Continental  service." 

What  of  the  very  birthplace  of  revolution,  Massa- 
chusetts and  Boston  ?  "  The  last  contest  in  the  town 
of  Boston,  in  1775,  between  Whig  and  Tory,  was 
decided,"  says  John  Adams,  "by  five  to  two."  On 
the  very  day  of  the  battle  of  Lexington  a  corps  of 
Loyalists  was  formed  in  Boston,  when  the  services  of  two 
hundred  merchants  and  tradesmen  were  offered  to 
General  Gage  and  accepted.  Their  commander  was 
Timothy  Ruggles,  who  had  presided  at  the  first  Con- 
gress of  the  colonies,  ten  years  before ;  and  in  the 
months  which  followed,  while  Washington  and  the 
patriot  army  were  carrying  on  the  siege,  other  similar 
organizations  of  Boston  Loyalists  were  formed  within 
the  town. 

In  March,  1776,  when  Gage's  ships  sailed  out  of 
the  harbor  they  carried  away  twelve  hundred  Loyal- 
ists who  preferred  exile  to  life  under  the  Revolution, 
and  in  every  ancient  graveyard  of  New  Brunswick 
and  Nova  Scotia  you  may  read  on  the  tombstones 
the  records  of  their  names  and  their  New  England 
birth.  Sabine  estimates  that  two  thousand  adherents 
of  the  King  left  Massachusetts  alone,  and  it  is  also 
stated  on  the  same  authority  that  of  the  three  hundred 
and  ten  who  were  banished  formally  by  the  State,  sixty 
were  Harvard  graduates.  We  may  judge  from  the 
lists  of  names  and  occupations,  names  standing  in 
most  cases  for  heads  of  families,  that  the  wealth,  the 


Fourth  op  July,  1900.  17 

education  and  the  aristocracy  of  Massachusetts  were 
with  the  King.  "Of  members  of  the  Council,  Com- 
missioners, officers  of  the  customs,  and  other  officials, 
there  were  one  hundred  and  two;  of  clergymen, 
eighteen  ;  of  inhabitants  of  country  towns,  one  hun- 
dred and  five;  of  merchants  and  other  persons  who 
resided  in  Boston,  two  hundred  and  thirteen ;  of 
farmers,  mechanics  and  traders,  three  hundred  and 
eighty-two."  The  lists  cover  almost  every  family 
name  now  noted  in  Boston,  and  show  that  the  Loy- 
alists included  kindred  of  the  very  men  who,  in 
Massachusetts,  made  the  Revolution  possible.  Sabine 
says  that  the  original  population  of  New  Brunswick 
was  composed  almost  entirely  of  Loyalists,  and  that 
the  Judges  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  colony 
first  appointed  were  all  graduates  of  Harvard  Col- 
lege. 

The  progress  of  public  sentiment  to  the  Declara- 
tion of  Independence  and  the  progress  of  the  Revo- 
lution to  success  were  always  through  conflict.  But 
the  conflict  was  not  alone  with  the  British  forces 
and  the  American  Loyalists.  There  were  subtler  and 
more  dangerous  foes  than  either  in  the  patriot 
armies  and  the  patriot  Government  themselves.  I 
touch  the  subject  reluctantly,  but  in  fair  fulfilment 
of  the  task  which  to  you  may  seem  ungracious,  but 
to  me  is  made  necessary  by  the  assaults  on  the  real 
present,  in  the  name  of  an  idealized  past. 


18  Oration. 

Our  armies  in  the  last  two  wars  have  been  con- 
demned by  critics  for  faults  which,  doubtless,  they 
had;  but  the  mistake  of  the  critics  and  the  false 
belief  into  which  they  have  led  the  people  is  in  the 
thought  that  even  one  new  fault  has  been  discovered, 
that  there  is  one  among  them  that  does  not  belong 
to  weak  humanity,  that  has  not  blotted  the  record 
of  every  army  that  ever  existed,  that  did  not 
show  itself  boldly  among  the  soldiers  of  the  Revolu- 
tion. We  know  what  the  patriot  armies,  as  armies, 
did  and  suffered ;  we  know  what  we  owe  to 
them,  and  what  all  civilization  owes;  but  it  is 
unjust  to  the  soldiers  of  our  own  times,  with  their 
faults  as  well  as  their  virtues  clear  to  us,  that  our 
judgment  of  the  soldiers  of  the  earlier  days  should 
rest  upon  romantic  sentiments  aroused  by  bronzes, 
statues,  paintings  and  poetry. 

Of  some  of  the  officers,  General  Knox  wrote  to 
Elbridge  Gerry  that  there  were  men  in  commission 
"who  wished  to  have  their  power  perpetuated  at  the 
expense  of  the  liberties  of  the  people,"  and  who  "  had 
been  rewarded  with  rank  without  having  the  least 
pretensions    to    it,  except  cabal  and  intrigue." 

Washington,  in  a  letter  to  a  Governor  of  a  State, 
affirmed  that  the  officers  who  had  been  sent  to  him 
therefrom  were  "generally  of  the  lowest  class  of  the 
people;"  that  they  "led  their  soldiers  to  plunder  the 
inhabitants    and    into    every    kind    of    mischief."     To 


Fourth  of  July,  1900.  19 


his  brother,  John  Augustine  Washington,  he  declared 
that  the  different  States  were  nominating  such 
officers  as  were  "not  fit  to  be  shoe-blacks."  "Many 
of  the  surgeons,"  said  Washington,  "  are  very  great 
rascals,  countenancing  the  men  to  sham  complaints 
to  exempt  them  from  duty,  and  often  receiving 
bribes  to  certify  indispositions^  with  a  view  to  pro- 
cure discharges  or  furloughs." 

We  have  heard  in  our  own  times  something  of 
accusation  against  speculators  and  army  contractors. 
They  were  not  strangers  to  Washington,  who  wrote 
expressing  his  satisfaction  that  an  effort  was  to  be 
made  to  bring  u  those  murderers  of  our  cause,  the 
monopolizers,  forestallers  and  engrossers,  to  condign 
punishment.  It  is  much  to  be  regretted  that  each 
State  long  ere  this  has  not  hunted  them  down  as 
pests  to  society  and  the  greatest  enemies  we  have 
to  the  happiness  of  America." 

Speaking  more  broadly  in  another  letter,  Washing- 
ton said :  "  From  what  I  have  seen,  heard  and  in 
part  know,  I  should  in  one  word  say  that  idleness, 
dissipation  and  extravagance  seem  to  have  laid  fast 
hold  of  most;  that  speculation,  peculation  and  an 
insatiable  thirst  for  riches  seem  to  have  got  the 
better  of  every  other  consideration  and  almost  every 
order  of  men,  and  that  party  disputes  and  personal 
quarrels  are  the  great  order  of  the  day." 

In    strong    confirmation  of    Washington's    view    is 


20  Oration. 

this    paragraph    from    a    letter    written    to  Jefferson, 
February  15,  1780,  by  Patrick  Henry: 

"  But  tell  me,  do  you  remember  any  instance 
where  tyranny  was  destroyed  and  freedom  estab- 
lished on  its  ruins  among  a  people  possessing  so 
small  a  share  of  virtue  and  public  spirit  ?  I  recol- 
lect none,  and  this,  more  than  the  British  arms, 
makes  me  fearful  of  final  success  without  a  reform." 

Conflict  marked  every  step  in  the  progress  of  the 
new  Constitution  of  1787 ;  and  conflict  has  marked 
and  will  still  mark  every  step  toward  its  complete 
and  unquestioned  acceptance.  Its  success  in  the 
beginning  was  the  supreme  political  triumph  of 
Washington's  life,  for  political  it  was,  strange  though 
the  word  may  seem  to  us  when  applied  to  that 
instrument  which  to  our  eyes  is  the  very  charter 
and  foundation  of  the  Republic.  Our  wonder  proves 
in  itself  that  events  in  history,  however  great, 
appear  with  the  passage  of  time  in  new  and  chang- 
ing lights.  At  its  birth  and  for  years  the  Constitu- 
tion was  the  football  of  parties  and  factions,  and 
the  word  "political,"  used  even  in  its  meanest  sense, 
would  apply  as  fitly  to  those  contests  as  to  the 
smaller  and  less  heroic  controversies  in  which  we  our- 
selves engage. 

When  Washington  began  the  movement  for  a  new 
Constitution  the  States  were  drawing  daily  farther 
apart,  each  anxious  only  for  its  own  small  interests, 


Fourth  of  July,  1900.  21 

each  watching  its  neighbors  with  distrust  and  hold- 
ing the  General  Government  in  suspicion  and  con- 
tempt. After  many  rebuffs,  the  men  who  saw  the 
startling  need  of  a  new  Constitution  found  them- 
selves at  last  in  the  convention  at  Philadelphia, 
under  the  Presidency  of  George  Washington.  The 
State  of  Rhode  Island  sent  no  delegates,  and  ten  of 
those  appointed  by  other  States  never  appeared. 
The  disputes  and  the  jealousies  were  countless,  and 
often  in  the  four  months  of  its  sittings  the  conven- 
tion seemed  to  have  reached  a  fruitless  end.  When 
the  instrument  was  ready  for  the  signatures  of  dele- 
gates, the  signers  numbered  but  thirty-nine.  Sixteen 
others,  including  Elbriclge  Gerry  and  Caleb  Strong 
of  Massachusetts,  though  in  attendance,  refused  to 
sign.  Three  of  these  sat  defiantly  in  the  hall  of 
the  convention,  and  we  are  told  that  the  reasons 
they  gave  for  their  hostility  were  that  Gerry  feared 
a  civil  war,  Randolph  of  Virginia  was  convinced  that 
the  consent  of  nine  States  never  could  be  obtained, 
and  Mason  of  Virginia  was  sure  that  they  were 
about  to  set  up  a  monarchy  or  a  tyranny,  he  did 
not  know  which.  The  delegations  of  but  three 
States  gave  their  signatures  unanimously. 

From  such  a  convention,  and  in  the  face  of  bitter 
hostility  in  Congress,  the  new  Constitution  was  sent 
to  the  States  for  their  approval.  Everywhere  the 
contest  was  close  and  hard.  Chief  Justice  Marshall, 
who   was    strongly   favorable   himself,    says  that  "  so 


22  Okation. 

small  in  many  instances  was  the  majority  for  the 
Constitution  as  to  afford  strong  ground  for  the 
opinion  that,  had  the  influence  of  character  been 
removed,  the  intrinsic  merits  of  the  instrument 
would  not  have  secured  its  adoption.  Indeed,  it  is 
scarcely  to  be  doubted  that  in  some  of  the  States 
a  majority  of  the  people  were  in  opposition."  Many 
regarded  the  new  Constitution  with  fear,  and  many 
others  with  contempt.  Even  Alexander  Hamilton, 
who  had  been  its  chief  supporter  in  the  convention 
and  almost  its  father,  whose  efforts  in  his  own 
State  were  all  that  saved  it  from  rejection  there, 
wrote  of  it  as  late  as  1802,  "I  am  still  trying  to 
prop  the  frail  and  worthless   fabric." 

New  Hampshire  ratified  by  a  majority  of  only  nine, 
New  York  by  a  majority  of  only  three,  and  Rhode 
Island  and  North  Carolina  not  until  after  Washing- 
ton's Government  had  been  months  in  operation.  In 
Virginia  the  fight  against  the  Constitution  was  led 
by  Patrick  Henry  with  vigor,  and  some  said  without 
scruple.  Among  his  conspicuous  supporters  in  oppo- 
sition for  a  time  or  to  the  end  were  the  Governor 
then  in  office,  the  three  men  besides  himself  who 
had  been  Governors  since  the  separation,  the  fathers 
of  two  future  Presidents,  John  Tyler  and  Benjamin 
Harrison,  and  James  Munroe,  who  was  himself  to 
be  President.  Patrick  Henry  was  accused  openly  of 
desiring  the  dismemberment  of  the  Union,  on  the 
ground    that    for    commercial    purposes   three  confed- 


Fourth  of  July,  1900.  23 

eracies  would  be  better  than  one ;  and  after  the 
convention  had  ratified  the  Constitution  by  a 
majority  of  but  ten,  he  found  it  necessary  to  say : 
"I  mean  not  to  breathe  the  spirit  nor  utter  the 
language  of  secession." 

Massachusetts,  after  a  struggle,  in  which  John 
Hancock  and  Sam  Adams  were  at  first  in  opposition, 
ratified  by  a  majority  of  but  nineteen  in  a  total  vote 
of  three  hundred  and  fifty-five. 

The  men  who  made  the  Constitution  wrought  for 
themselves  and  for  their  time.  History  does  not 
show  that  in  their  concern  for  posterity  they  were 
more  generous  in  their  day  than  we  are  in  ours, 
that  their  spirit  of  self-sacrifice  was  broader,  their 
view  of  the  future  more  candid  or  more  penetrat- 
ing. They  enacted  according  to  their  needs,  they 
bargained  or  surrendered  to  serve  their  own  interests, 
to  soften  their  own  jealousies,  to  allay  their  own 
fears.  If  a  prophet  had  risen  in  their  convention 
and  foretold  the  strife  of  generations  which  was  to 
follow  their  vague  compromises  on  State  rights, 
their  tender  nursing  of  slavery,  the  compromises,  I 
believe,  would  still  have  been  made,  slavery  would 
still  have  passed  unhurt,  and  the  twenty-one  years 
allowed  by  the  Constitution  for  the  further  importa- 
tition  of  slaves  would  not  have  been  shortened  by  a 
month.  To  posterity  such  acts  bequeathed  a  century 
of  conflict  not  yet  ended ;  and  through  seventy  years 


24  Oration. 

of  turmoil,  hatred  and  bloodshed,  posterity  wrought 
patiently  and  suffered  cruelly  that  it  might  at  last 
write  into  the  Constitution  as  it  came  from  the 
hands  of  Washington  and  Franklin,  Hamilton  and 
Madison,  the  words  which  seem  to  us  of  this  gener- 
ation, to  declare  no  more  than  Humanity's  first  law, 
the  words  of  the  Thirteenth  Amendment  that 
"Neither  slavery  nor  involuntary  servitude,  .  .  . 
shall  exist  within  the  United  States." 

In  the  processions  with  which  the  people  glorified 
the  birth  of  the  new  Government  the  figure  of  a 
ship  under  full  sail  was  used  to  typify  the  Constitu- 
tion. The  symbol  was  apt  and  picturesque,  but  we 
know  now  what  was  hidden  from  those  who  then 
rejoiced,  that  their  ship,  the  "Constitution,"  was  sent 
to  sea  by  its  builders  with  the  fever  of  mutiny  smoul- 
dering among  its  crew,  and  the  fire  of  slavery  burn- 
ing in  its  hold. 

Was  it  right  to  launch  the  ship  with  all  its 
faults?  Was  it  wise  to  start  the  voyage  with  all  its 
unseen  perils?  I  answer,  yes,  a  hundred  times.  The 
men  who  must  have  first  a  perfect  plan,  a  construc- 
tion faultless  and  complete,  never  launch  a  ship ;  a 
crew  that  should  refuse  to  sail  while  the  winds  and 
currents  of  the  voyage  were  unrevealed  —  until  the 
final  port  across  the  troubled  seas  rose  clear  before 
their  sight,  would  rot  with  their  ship  in  the  mud 
of  its  anchorage.  Of  such  as  these  were  not  the 
men  who  built  and  launched  and  sent  to  sea  the 
ship  they  called  the  "  Constitution."     They  meant  to 


Fourth  of  July,  1900.  25 


join  the  tottering  States  in  a  union  strong  as  the 
States  themselves  would  allow,  they  meant  to  found 
a  republic  upon  freedom,  equality  and  the  exercise 
of  intelligent  self-government.  Those  were  the  great 
ends  at  which  they  aimed,  and  to  reach  those  ends 
they  turned  aside  from  every  obstacle.  They  made 
the  bargains  and  the  compromises  which  constructive 
statesmen  of  every  age  have  made  and  must  ever 
make,  and  obstructive  critics  of  every  age  have  hin- 
dered and  denounced.  Suffering  and  death  have 
fallen  upon  the  generations  that  have  followed,  but 
far  better  that  than  the  loss  at  its  birth  of  that 
nation  which  is  now  the  exemplar,  the  shield  and 
the  promise  of  freedom  for  the  whole  world. 

Posterity  has  gained  beyond  measure  by  the  wis- 
dom of  the  builders  and  the  strength  and  stability 
of  their  work,  and  though  posterity  has  paid  its 
debt  a  thousand-fold  in  its  sufferings  and  its  grati- 
tude, the  fount  of  that  gratitude  will  still  flow  on. 

Corruption  and  political  rancor  are  charged  upon  the 
politics  and  the  public  men  of  these  times.  But  no 
new  kind  of  evil  vexes  us,  and,  regardless  even  of  the 
growth  of  temptation  and  opportunity,  the  present 
need  shrink  from  no  comparison  with  the  past.  Prof. 
John  Bach  McMaster  of  the  University  of  Pennsyl- 
vania, whose  "  History  of  the  People  of  the  United 
States"  is  a  marvel  of  patient  research  and  intelligent 
analysis,  gives  his  summary  of  that  contention  in  these 
words : 


26  Okation. 

"  Whoever  reads  the  magazines  and  newspapers, 
whoever  listens  to  the  oratory  of  the  pulpit  and  the 
after-dinner  speeches  of  political  reformers,  is  well 
aware  of  the  existence  of  a  widespread  belief  that 
politicians  and  legislators  and  public  men  are  more 
corrupt  to-day  than  they  were  in  the  time  of  our 
ancestors,  three  generations  ago,  and  that  the  cause 
of  our  political  debasement  is  a  free  and  unrestricted 
ballot.  This,  most  happily,  is  a  pure  delusion.  A 
very  little  study  of  long-forgotten  politics  will  suffice 
to  show  that,  hi  filibustering  and  gerrymandering, 
in  stealing  Governorships  and  Legislatures,  in  using 
force  at  the  polls,  in  colonizing  and  in  distributing 
patronage  to  whom  patronage  is  due,  in  all  the 
frauds  and  tricks  that  go  to  make  up  the  worst 
form  of  practical  politics  the  men  who  founded  our 
State  and  National  Governments  were  always  our 
equals  and  often  our  masters.  Yet  they  lived  in 
times  when  universal  suffrage  did  not  exist,  and 
when  the  franchise  was  everywhere  guarded  by 
property  and  religious  qualifications  of  the  strictest 
kind." 

Quoting  from  other  historians,  and  touching  only 
the  very  edge  of  the  case,  we  find  illustrations  innu- 
merable of  Professor  McMaster's  general  statement. 
Mr.  John  T.  Morse,  in  his  life  of  Jefferson,  writes 
thus  of  the  famous  Congress  of  1776,  which  adopted 
the  Declaration  of  Independence : 

"It  is  a  truth  not  to  be  concealed  that  there  were 


Fourth  of  July,  1900.  27 

cabals,  bickerings,  heart-burnings,  perhaps  actual 
enmities,  among  the  members  of  that  famous  body, 
which,  grandly  as  it  looms  up,  and  rightly,  too,  was 
after  all  composed  of  jarring  human  ingredients." 

The  Massachusetts  convention  called  to  act  upon 
the  Constitution  of  1787  was  sitting  when  the  "Bos- 
ton Gazette,"  with  striking  typographical  display,  de- 
clared that  money  had  been  brought  into  the  State 
to  bribe  members  who  opposed  the  Constitution. 
The  term  "  Gerrymander "  came  into  use  in  Massa- 
chusetts in  1812 ;  but  there  is  good  evidence  that 
the  act  of  political  meanness  which  ever  since  it  has 
described  was  invented  twenty-five  years  earlier, 
when  Patrick  Henry  arranged  that  the  districts  in 
Virginia  should  be  laid  out  in  such  a  way  as  to  se- 
cure the  defeat  of  Madison  as  Representative  in  the 
First  Congress,  because  of  Madison's  support  of  the 
Constitution. 

Thomas  Jefferson  and  Alexander  Hamilton,  while 
yet  decent  in  their  rivalry,  made  a  bargain  at  a 
dinner-table  for  an  exchange  of  a  few  votes  in  Con- 
gress which  each  needed  in  order  to  carry  through  a 
favorite  scheme.  The  results  of  that  bargain  were 
that  the  General  Government  assumed  the  debts  of 
the  separate  States,  as  Hamilton  wished,  and  the 
National  Capital  was  established  where  it  stands 
to-day,  instead  of  farther  North,  as  Hamilton's  own 
party  desired.  Later,  when  accused  of  having  made 
the  bargain,  Jefferson  offered  the  pitiful  excuse  that 
he  had  been  "hoodwinked"  by  Hamilton. 


28  Oration. 

Toward  the  close  of  John  Adams's  administration, 
when  his  party  had  been  defeated  in  New  York, 
Hamilton  proposed  that  before  the  time  for  the  as- 
sembling of  the  new  and  hostile  Legislature  the  old 
Legislature  should  be  called  together  and  a  law 
passed  providing  that  Presidential  Electors  should  be 
chosen  by  districts,  thus  dividing  the  electoral  vote 
of  the  State.  This  scheme  of  theft  from  his  politi- 
cal opponents  and  from  the  people  of  the  State, 
which  since  has  borne  bad  and  abundant  fruit,  was 
urged  unsuccessfully  by  Hamilton  upon  John  Jay, 
the  Governor,  with  arguments  which  descended  even 
to  the  plea  that  they  ought  not  to  be  "  over-scrupu- 
lous." 

The  "Gerrymander,"  "log-rolling,"  and  the  theft 
under  legal  color  of  the  electoral  votes  of  a  State,  all 
definite  and  conspicuous  forms  of  disreputable  politics, 
have,  therefore,  distinguished  parentage  among  the 
public  men  who  served  a  century  ago. 

The  testimony  of  Jefferson  relating  to  Congress, 
given  while  he  was  Washington's  Secretary  of  State, 
was  influenced,  doubtless,  by  factional  rivalries  of  the 
time,  yet  it  cannot  be  passed  as  trivial.  In  May, 
1792,  he  wrote  to  Washington  that  the  finances  had 
been  managed  not  only  extravagantly,  but  so  as  to 
create  "  a  corrupt  squadron,  deciding  the  voice  of 
the  Legislature,"  and  manifesting  "  a  disposition  to 
get  rid  of  the  limitations  imposed  by  the  Constitu- 
tion ; "    "that   the    ultimate  object  of    all    this    is   to 


Fourth  of  July,  1900.  29 

prepare  the  way  for  a  change  from  the  present 
republican  form  of  government  to  that  of  a  mon- 
archy." He  was  positive  that  "the  corruption  of 
the  Legislature "  would  prove  "  the  instrument  for 
producing  in  future  a  King,  Lords  and  Commons,  or 
whatever  else  those  who  direct  it  may  choose. 
Jefferson  wrote  to  Lafayette  in  June,  1792 :  "  Too 
many  of  these  stock-jobbers  and  king-jobbers  have 
come  into  our  Legislature,  or,  rather,  too  many  of 
our  Legislature  have  become  stock-jobbers  and  king- 
jobbers." 

What  were  the  personal  relations  of  the  men  high 
in  office  in  the  early  years  of  the  Government 
under  the  Constitution  ?  What  was  the  feeling 
between  party  and  party,  and  what  were  the  methods 
of  partisan  warfare  ?  The  first  twelve  years  of  the 
Government,  under  Washington,  Adams  and  Jeffer- 
son, were  filled  with  personal  and  political  bitterness 
and  abuse  never  since  equalled,  which  would  be 
considered  by  us  disgraceful  to  the  men  and  the 
parties,  destructive  of  public  morals,  and  urgently 
dangerous  to  the  very  life  of  the  republic.  The 
population  was  hardly  four  millions ;  but  one  town 
on  the  Continent  had  fifty  thousand  inhabitants ;  no 
one  had  dreamed  of  the  vast  instrumentalities  by 
which  political  controversies  are  created  and  car- 
ried on  now  and  in  our  present  population  of  eighty 
millions.     And    yet    a    century    ago    neither    leaders 


30  Oration. 

nor  people,  jealous,  grasping  and  vindictive,  could  be 
kept  from  flying  at  one  another's  throats.  The  few 
particular  examples  which  I  shall  give,  separated 
from  the  extraordinary  mass  which  history  furnishes, 
apply  exclusively  to  the  men  of  that  period  whose 
names  are  as  familiar  to  us  as  they  were  to  the 
people  of  their  times. 

Franklin's  death,  in  1790,  saved  him  from  these 
quarrels,  but  not  from  earlier  and  later  denunciation. 
John  Adams,  because  of  their  troubles  when  both 
were  representing  their  country  at  Paris,  charged 
deliberately,  and  in  writing,  that  Franklin  had  con- 
spired to  crush  his  associate,  becoming  thereby  guilty, 
to  use  Adams's  language,  of  a  "  vulgar  and  low 
intrigue"  and  a  "base  trick."  He  denied  that  he 
himself  had  ever  interfered  with  Franklin's  affairs  in 
Paris,  but  sometimes  had  failed  to  consult  him 
because  of  Franklin's  "extreme  indolence  and  dissi- 
pation." 

Jefferson  says  of  his  experience  under  Washing- 
ton :  "  Hamilton  and  I  were  pitted  against  each 
other  every  day  in  the  cabinet,  like  two  fighting- 
cocks."  The  public  and  private  controversies  of  these 
men  covered  many  years,  and  though  Hamilton's 
acts  and  words  were  as  harsh  as  those  of  his 
rival,  it  will  be  enough  to  quote  from  a  letter 
written  by  Jefferson  in  1792,  in  which  he  speaks  of 
charges  made  by  Hamilton  as  "the  slanders  of  a 
man    whose    history,    from    the    moment    at    which 


Fourth  of  July,  1900.  31 

history  can  stoop  to  notice  him,  is  a  tissue  of 
machination  against  the  liberty  of  the  country  which 
has  not  only  received  and  given  him  bread,  but- 
heaped  its  honors  on  his  head."  Jefferson  wrote,  in 
1818,  with  a  hatred  which  long  outlived  the  death 
of  the  man  whom  he  assailed,  that  "Hamilton  was 
not  only  a  monarchist,  but  for  a  monarchy  bottomed 
on  corruption."  Yet  Hamilton  to-day  has  a  public 
statue  in  Boston,  and  his  services,  apart  from  his 
faults,  justify  the  honor. 

Jefferson,  then  Secretary  of  State,  wrote  to  Wash- 
ington, in  1791,  concerning  John  Adams,  the  Vice- 
President  :  "  Even  since  his  apostacy  to  hereditary 
monarchy  and  nobility,  though  we  differ,  we  differ 
as  friends  should  do."  But  the  friendly  aspect  of 
their  differences  soon  changed,  for  they  quarrelled 
bitterly  up  to  and  through  the  election  which 
defeated  Adams  for  a  second  term  as  President, 
and  put  Jefferson  in  his  place.  On  the  night  of 
March  3,  1801,  the  last  of  the  administration  of 
Adams,  he  spent  his  time  in  making  appointments 
that  should  forestall  his  successor,  and  at  midnight 
drove  out  of  Washington,  that  he  might  not  be 
forced  to  meet  Jefferson  the  next  day. 

Find  in  the  last  thirty  years  a  single  word  of  per- 
sonal contempt  or  bitterness  hurled  by  one  candidate 
for  President  at  another.  There  is  none  such,  and  if 
it  had  been  uttered  the  guilty  man  would  have  fallen 
low  in  the  esteem  even  of   his  own  party.     Contrast 


32  Oration. 

this  condition  with  the  practices  of  a  century  ago, 
when  candidates  railed  at  one  another  publicly,  and 
with  every  burst  of  abuse  their  supporters  urged  them 
to  new  excesses.  Surely  both  leaders  and  followers 
and  the  public  journals  have  advanced  in  a  hundred 
years  in  the  decencies  of  civilization  and  the  cour- 
tesies of  public  life. 

Adams  believed  that  Hamilton  had  tried  in  a  treach- 
erous way  to  prevent  his  election  as  President,  though 
both  were  of  the  same  party.  The  quarrel  which  fol- 
lowed and  was  carried  through  the  four  years  of 
Adams's  administration  is  described  as  the  bitterest 
feud  in  American  political  history.  And  let  us  not 
forget  that  Hamilton,  the  first  Secretary  of  the 
Treasury,  was  killed  by  Aaron  Burr,  the  fourth  Vice- 
President  of  the  United  States,  in  a  duel  brought  on 
so  craftily,  for  political  reasons,  that  the  killing  was 
almost  deliberate  murder. 

Let  us  turn  to  a  single  instance,  among  many,  of 
the  political  rancor  which  darkened  the  whole  country. 
Sam  Adams  is  known  by  name  to  every  child  of  ten 
in  Boston.  His  statue  rises  in  a  crowded  public  square 
a  hundred  yards  from  Faneuil  Hall,  and  to  the  passing 
thousands  it  stands  as  a  tribute  from  this  generation  to 
a  glorified  leader  and  builder  of  the  past.  We  know 
Sam  Adams;,  good  and  bad,  better  than  his  compatriots 
knew  him,  and  we  treat  him  with  a  generosity  greater 
than  theirs.  At  the  end  of  forty  years  of  public  life, 
not  free  from  faults,  yet  rich  in  patriotic  service,  a  life 


Foukth  of  July,  1900.  33 

which  closed  in  disappointment  and  perhaps  in  poverty, 
"  there  was  embarrassment,"  the  historian  tells  ns, 
"through  political  enmity,  in  procuring  a  suitable 
escort  for  his  funeral."  Think  of  it !  In  a  Boston 
which  should  have  had  all  the  charity  and  all  the 
neighborliness  of  a  country  town,  political  hatred  was 
shown  publicly  and  vehemently  toward  a  dead  man,  a 
man  long  removed  from  active  politics,  and  that  man 
Sam  Adams. 

To  sum  up  in  a  sentence,  we  may  turn  to  a 
passage  written  in  1797  by  Jefferson,  in  which  he 
deplores  the  "  present  passions,"  the  inability  of 
political  opponents  to  "  separate  the  business  of  the 
State  from  society,"  so  that  "men  who  had  been 
intimate  all  their  lives  cross  the  street  to  avoid 
meeting,  and  turn  their  heads  another  way  lest  they 
should  be  obliged  to  touch  their  hats." 

Secession  is  identified  so  closely  with  the  South 
and  slavery  that  we  forget  that  secession,  though 
the  extremest  form  of  State  rights,  was  but  one  of 
a  hundred  ways  by  which  the  States  attempted  to 
assert  their  superiority  to  the  Constitution  and  the 
General  Government. 

It  is  worth  wmile  to  recall  the  fact  that  the  first 
contest  between  the  nation  and  a  State  was  settled 
not  in  Richmond  or  Mobile  or  Charleston,  but  in 
Boston,  and  hardly  more  than  a  stone's  throw  from 
Faneuil      Hall.     Washington,    soon     after     his     first 


34  Oration. 

election,  visited  Boston  officially.  John  Hancock  was 
Governor,  and  John  Hancock  held  high  the  State's 
dignity  and  his  own.  He  expected  the  President  of 
the  United  States  to  recognize  the  official  superiority 
of  the  Governor  of  Massachusetts  at  home,  and 
intimated  that  a  call  from  Washington  would 
be  agreeable.  Washington  sent  his  regrets  and 
remained  at  his  lodgings,  ready  on  his  part  to 
receive  the  Governor.  According  to  historians,  Han- 
cock would  have  been  willing  that  the  President 
of  the  United  States  should  leave  Boston  without 
a  meeting,  but  not  when  the  President  happened 
to  be  George  Washington.  He  wrote,  therefore, 
that,  though  in  much  bodily  distress,  he  would  do 
himself  the  honor  of  calling  upon  the  President. 
Washington  sent  an  icy  answer  begging  that  the  Gov- 
ernor should  not  risk  his  health,  but  Hancock  insisted, 
and,  wrapped  in  blankets,  was  carried  dramatically  to 
his  first  meeting  with  an  upstart  President  whose 
official  superiority  he  had  been  forced  to  acknowledge. 

A  summary  of  the  early  struggles  between  the  na- 
tion and  the  States  is  given  by  Professor  McMaster 
in  these  words : 

"  Thus  was  it  that  in  the  short  space  of  twenty 
years  thirteen  of  the  four-and-twenty  States  then  in 
the  Union  asserted  the  doctrine  of  State  sovereignty 
in  one  form  or  another.  They  charged  Congress 
with  usurpation  of  powers ;  they  proposed  amend- 
ments to  the  Constitution ;  they  defied  the  President ; 


Fourth  of  July,  1900.  35 

denied  the  jurisdiction  of  the  Supreme  Court;  de- 
clared laws  unconstitutional ;  threatened  resistance  if 
others  were  enacted  ;  asserted  the  doctrine  of  nullifi- 
cation, and  in  their  Legislatures  talked  openly  of 
secession." 

Progress  through  conflict  was  the  experience  for  a 
hundred  years  of  the  men  who  sought  to  establish 
the  power  of  the  general  Government,  to  interpret 
and  enforce  the  Constitution,  and  to  nurse  into  life 
and  vigor  that  spirit  of  nationality  without  which 
the  republic  would  have  been  as  a  body  without  a 
soul.  Progress  through  conflict  was  the  rule  also  in 
every  purchase  or  annexation  of  the  territories  which 
have  added  four-fold  to  the  area  of  the  original  col- 
onies. When  Jefferson  made  the  Louisiana  purchase, 
on  which  afterwards,  twelve  States  were  founded  and 
asked  Congress  to  pass  a  bill  providing  for  the  pay- 
ment of  the  purchase  money,  Josiah  Quincy,  then  a 
member,  declared  that  the  passage  of  the  bill  would 
be  the  death  blow  of  the  Constitution,  and  added : 

"  It  is  my  deliberate  opinion  that  if  this  bill 
passes,  the  bonds  of  this  Union  are  virtually  dis- 
solved ;  that  the  States  which  compose  it  are  free 
from  their  moral  obligations,  and  that  as  it  will  be 
the  right  of  all,  so  it  will  be  the  duty  of  some  to 
prepare  definitely  for  a  separation  —  amicably  if  they 
can,  violently  if  they  must." 

Like    opposition    was    made    to    the    purchase    of 


36  Oration. 

Florida.  The  annexation  of  Texas  was  fought  bit- 
terly as  a  part  of  the  slavery  contest,  and  the 
country  now  covered  by  California,  two  neighboring 
States  and  a  Territory  came  to  us  as  a  result  of  the 
war  with  Mexico.  The  Oregon  contest  was  active 
for  twenty-five  years,  first  in  Congress,  which  refused 
repeatedly  and  with  contempt  to  give  aid  to  those 
heroic  Americans  who  had  gone  to  the  coast  of  the 
far  Pacific  and  were  striving  to  hold  it  for  their 
own  country.  Serious  men  of  the  period,  who  had 
declared  before  that  the  Mississippi  river  was  the 
natural  and  God-given  western  boundary  of  the 
United  States,  now  stretched  their  belief  and  their 
conscience  to  include  the  Missouri;  but  at  that 
point  were  immovable.  The  territory  between  the 
Missouri  and  the  Rocky  Mountains,  which  now  sup- 
ports eight  States,  with  a  population  of  perhaps  six 
millions,  was  regarded  as  a  desert,  worthless  for  any 
purpose,  except  that,  to  quote  the  opinion  of  one  of 
the  explorers  of  the  time,  it  might  "  prove  of  infi- 
nite importance  to  the  United  States,  inasmuch  as  it 
is  calculated  to  serve  as  a  barrier  to  prevent  too 
great  expansion  of  our  population  westward."  The 
Congressional  humorists  of  the  period  spent  their 
time,  on  the  other  hand,  in  showing  that  if  the 
Oregon  country  should  become  a  territory,  its  dele- 
gate to  Congress  would  be  unable  to  travel  to 
Washington  and  back  again  in  a  year,  and  would 
be  prevented  therefore  from  attending  to  Congressional 
duties. 


Fourth  of  July,  1900.  37 

As  late  in  the  century  as  1845  Charles  Sumner 
expressed  one  current  view  of  this  and  like  subjects 
in  these  words :  "  By  an  act  of  unjust  legislation, 
extending  our  power  over  Texas,  peace  with  Mexico 
is  endangered,  while,  by  petulant  assertion  of  a  dis- 
puted claim  to  a  remote  territory  beyond  the  Rocky 
Mountains,  ancient  fires  of  hostile  strife  are  kindled 
anew  on  the  hearth  of  our  mother  country."  "The 
remote  territory  beyond  the  Rocky  Mountains"  of 
which  Sumner  spoke  was  saved  a  few  months  after- 
wards by  that  "petulant  assertion"  which  he  abhorred, 
coupled  with  one  of  those  compromises  which  he 
despised ;  and  to-day  we  owe  to  that  settlement 
largely  the  States  of  Oregon,  Washington  and  Idaho, 
with  nearly  three  hundred  thousand  square  miles  and 
a  population  much  more  than  a  million. 

I  care  nothing  for  that  force,  influence  or  fetich 
sometimes  called  Destiny.  I  care  everything  for  the 
will  of  God;  and  if  ever  or  anywhere  Divine  pur- 
pose can  be  traced  through  the  temporal  affairs  of  a 
nation  I  believe  it  to  be  shown  in  the  times,  the 
effects  and  even  the  methods  of  our  country's  ex- 
pansion. We  bought,  bartered,  seized  or  frankly  con- 
quered —  taking  always  territory  which  only  we  could 
raise  to  its  potential  value,  which  was  not  a  benefit 
but  a  burden  to  its  actual  or  professed  owners,  which 
became  in  our  hands  a  refuge  and  a  field  of  profit 
for    all    the   peoples    of    the    earth.     Can   we  believe 


38  Oration. 

that  if  the  republic  of  Texas  had  failed  to  win  its 
freedom,  that  if  Mexico  had  kept,  also,  those  vast 
possessions  on  the  Pacific  sold  afterwards  to  us 
through  the  pressure  brought  by  defeat  —  can  we 
believe  that,  with  such  territorial  burdens,  Mexico 
could  have  developed  the  unity,  the  discipline  and 
the  self-governing  power  which  have  made  her  to- 
day a  worthy  and  prosperous  neighbor  of  our  own 
republic  ?  Can  we  believe  that,  with  Spain  on  our 
southern  border,  with  France  holding  still  the  line  of 
the  MississijDpi  and  hemming  us  in  on  the  west  from 
Canada  to  the  Gulf  of  Mexico  —  can  we  believe  that 
they  and  we  could  have  counted  on  a  single  month 
of  peace  while  they  and  their  governments  remained 
on  the  Continent? 

Our  wars  with  England  and  Mexico  roused  bitter 
contention  at  home  as  well  as  armed  conflict  with 
foreign  enemies,  and  in  both  wars  Massachusetts  led 
the  opposition.  In  1812  it  was  because  the  com- 
merce of  her  merchants  was  impeded,  and  because 
the  political  party  then  not  popular  here  was  in 
leadership  in  the  country.  Despite  the  patriotism  of 
particular  men,  and  despite  heroic  memories  of  naval 
battles  in  which  her  sons  engaged,  the  record  made 
by  Massachusetts  as  a  State  in  that  war,  now  called 
the  second  war  for  independence,  was  pitiable  indeed. 
The  General  Court,  in  session  when  news  of  the 
declaration  of   war  reached  Boston,  passed  a  vote  of 


Fourth  of  July,  1900.  39 

disapproval,  four  hundred  and  six  to  two  hundred  and 
forty.  The  Governor  refused  to  honor  the  requisition 
of  the  United  States  for  troops,  and  would  do  no  more 
than  issue  a  proclamation  ordering  the  militia  to  be 
in  readiness.  Again,  he  declared  in  a  message  that 
not  Great  Britain  but  our  own  Government  was  the 
offender.  After  a  sea  fight  with  the  heroic  Lawrence 
in  command,  when  the  people  were  celebrating  every- 
where, the  Legislature  of  Massachusetts  passed  a 
resolution  that  "  It  did  not  become  a  religious 
people  to  express  any  approbation  of  military  or 
naval  exploits  not  immediately  defensive."  So  the 
dismal  years  went  by,  years  filled  with  public 
utterances  and  private  doings  which  have  exposed 
Massachusetts  and,  indeed,  New  England,  ever  since 
to  charges  of  treason  in  act  as  well  as  in  thought. 
"  The  New  England  merchants,"  says  Mr.  John 
T.  Morse,  "with  their  well-filled  coffers  and  their 
abundant  marine,  were  so  disaffected  that  they  be- 
gan to  talk  of  secession.  The  Hartford  Convention, 
which  hardly  restrained  itself  from  crossing  the 
danger  line  of  treason,  is  one  of  the  reminiscences 
of  that  period."  That  movement  began  in  Massa- 
chusetts, which  sent  as  its  distinguished  delegates 
George  Cabot,  who  was  President  of  the  convention; 
Nathan  Dane,  founder  of  a  law  professorship  at 
Cambridge;  Harrison  Gray  Otis,  William  Prescott, 
son  of  Colonel  Prescott  of  Bunker  Hill  and  father 
of     the    historian;     Timothy    Bigelow,    and    Stephen 


40  Oration. 

Longfellow,  father  of  the  poet.  Those  who  took 
part  in  the  convention  had  so  little  subsequent 
pride  in  their  work  that  its  character  is  not  made 
clear;  and,  whatever  its  purposes  may  have  been, 
the  proposals  of  peace  brought  them  to  an  end. 
The  "Boston  Centinel,"  a  newspaper  in  sympathy  with 
the  ruling  party  here,  spoke  of  Massachusetts,  Rhode 
Island  and  Connecticut  as  the  first  three  pillars  "in 
a  new  Federal  edifice."  In  our  second  war  for  inde- 
pendence, therefore,  as  in  the  first,  it  was  a  progress 
through  conflict,  even  among  the  American  people. 

The  Massachusetts  opposition  to  the  war  with 
Mexico  took  higher  ground.  The  movement  for  the 
abolition  of  slavery  had  grown  strong,  and  the 
threatened  war  was  regarded  as  an  attempt  by  the 
slavery  party  to  add  great  territories  to  the  south- 
ward, to  balance  the  growth  of  free  States  in  the 
West.  There  was,  besides,  a  strong  humanitarian 
feeling  against  war  as  war.  It  was  on  these  two 
grounds  that  Charles  Sumner  made  his  famous  ora- 
tion, delivered  in  this  Boston  series,  fifty-five  years 
ago  to-day.  He  declared  that  there  could  be  no 
peace  that  was  not  honorable,  no  war  that  was  not 
dishonorable ;  that  no  just  man  would  sacrifice  a 
single  human  life  to  bring  under  our  rule  both 
Texas  and  Oregon ;  that  our  army  and  navy  men- 
aced peace,  and  should  be  given  up ;  that  the  forti- 
fications in  our  harbors  invited  attack,  and  ought  to 


Foukth  of  July,  1900.  41 

be    dismantled.     He    denounced    the  militia  with    es- 
pecial contempt,  as  this  passage  will  show : 

"  I  am  well  aware  that  efforts  to  reduce  the 
militia  are  encountered  by  some  of  the  dearest 
prejudices  of  the  common  mind  —  not  only  by  the 
war  spirit,  but  by  that  other,  which  first  animates 
childhood,  and  at  a  later  day  '  children  of  a  larger 
growth,'  inviting  to  finery  of  dress  and  parade  — 
the  same  which  fantastically  bedecks  the  dusky 
feather-cinctured  chief  of  the  soft  regions  warmed 
by  the  tropical  sun  —  which  inserts  a  ring  in  the 
nose  of  the  North  American  Indian  —  which  slits 
the  ears  of  the  Australian  savage  and  tattoos  the 
New  Zealand  cannibal." 

The  Charles  Sumner  of  that  day  was  thirty-five 
years  old,  of  the  highest  character  and  the  broadest 
culture,  an  enthusiast  in  the  crusade  against  slavery, 
a  hater  of  compromise  and  prevarication,  a  brave, 
arrogant,  refined,  scholarly  novice  in  the  practical 
affairs  of  life  and  of  government.  But  later  it  was 
the  Charles  Sumner  turned  fifty,  half  a  generation 
of  harsh  conflict  behind  him,  eyes  opened  now  to 
the  gulf  between  the  actual  and  the  ideal,  that  was 
the  Sumner  who  missed  by  an  hour  standing  witness 
of  the  bloody  march  through  Baltimore  of  a  regiment 
of  that  same  Massachusetts  militia  which  once  he 
had  scorched  with  his  contempt,  but  rushing  now  in 
that  glitter  and  finery  once  so  despised,  to  defend  the 


42  Okation. 

national  capital  and  save  the  Union.  It  was  the 
new  Sumner  who  grew  in  the  conflict  to  the  fullest 
measure  of  American  statesmanship;  who  urged  and 
witnessed  the  growth  of  the  navy  to  five  hundred 
ships,  the  enrolment  in  the  army  of  two  millions  of 
men,  the  crowded  use  of  every  fortress  which  once 
he  would  have  destroyed.  It  was  the  Sumner  jealous 
of  the  rights  of  the  republic,  fierce  in  defense  of  her 
life,  who  hurled  against  that  "  mother  country "  of 
his  youth  the  fiercest  and  most  threatening  words 
which  crossed  the  ocean  in  those  gloomy  days  when 
the  hard  pressed  republic  knew  not  whence  new  foes 
might  spring.  It  was  the  Sumner,  at  last,  sorrowful 
but  convinced,  who  wrote  to  Richard  Cobden  in  Sep- 
tember, 1863 :  "  The  war  must  be  fought  out.  This 
is  sad  enough  to  me !  It  costs  me  a  pang  to  give 
up  early  visions,  and  to  see  my  country  filled  with 
armies,  while  the  military  spirit  prevails  everywhere.  " 

Abuse  of  jraolic  men  is  not  new  in  our  day,  and 
yet  a  notion  that  the  practice  is  but  lately  born, 
and  needed,  therefore,  to  meet  a  new  condition  is  a 
main  cause  of  that  false  belief  that  the  present  has 
fallen  from  the  standard  of  the  past.  If  our  public 
men  were  the  first  so  punished,  it  would  be  fair  to 
believe  that  they  were  the  first  who  had  offended. 
But  every  statesman  of  the  past,  every  official,  even, 
whose  name  deserves  a  place  in  history,  was  a 
victim   in   his   time    of    such    abuse,  and   the  keenest 


Fourth  of  July,  1900.  43 

suffering  fell  to  the  highest  and  the  best.  No  public 
servant  of  ours  is  assaulted  and  slandered  as  Wash- 
ington and  Lincoln  were  assaulted  and  slandered  by 
the  people  among  whom  they  lived;  yet  Washington 
and  Lincoln,  poorly  as  our  people  know  them  as 
they  really  were,  stand,  and  will  stand  always  and 
rightfully,  as  the  great  and  unassailable  figures  in 
American  history.  * 

The  Washington  of  the  class  room  and  the  schools 
is  a  graven  image,  a  figure  of  marble  set  upon  a 
pedestal,  without  passions,  emotions  or  nerves.  He 
is  a  moral  automaton,  an  intellectual  mechanism. 
Such  a  man,  if  such  had  ever  lived,  might  well  have 
grown  from  the  priggish  hero  of  that  false  and 
foolish  cherry-tree  story,  which  has  done  more  among 
our  boys  than  the  Father  of  Lies  himself  to  make 
obedience  odious  and  truth  telling  ridiculous.  The 
real  Washington  was  a  man  of  flesh  and  blood  and 
fiery  temper.  He  had  body  and  heart  as  well  as 
brain  and  conscience.  Doubtless,  as  he  abhorred  a  liar 
or  a  coward  he  despised  a  drunkard  or  a  debauchee. 
But  he  lived  as  the  country  gentlemen  of  the 
place  and  period  lived  —  temperate  himself,  but  not 
abstemious,  thrifty  but  generous,  dignified  but  friendly, 
kind  to  man  and  beast,  but  a  fox  hunter,  and  all 
his  life  an  owner  of  slaves.  His  virtues  were  not 
the  virtues  of  pale  blood ;  he  walked  the  narrow  path 
of  self  control  by  grace  neither  of  dulness  nor  of 
freedom  from  temptation.     It  was  a  man  of  red  blood 


44  Oeation. 

and  fiery  impulse  who  met  the  retreating  Lee  at 
Monmouth  with  scorching  words  and  an  aspect  which 
Lafayette  described  as  terrible.  It  was  a  man  of 
heart  and  sentiment  who  leaped  from  his  horse,  in 
his  Northern  camp,  and,  with  tears  in  his  eyes, 
shook  the  hand  of  every  soldier  of  the  company  of 
riflemen  in  fringed  hunting  shirts  whose  Captain  re- 
ported himself  to  the  Commander-in-Chief  as  from 
the  old  home,  "  on  the  right  bank  of  the  Potomac." 
It  was  a  man  of  delicate  sensibility  whom  Jefferson 
knew  when  he  wrote  that  Washington,  as  President, 
"is  extremely  affected  by  the  attacks  made  and  kept 
up  on  him  in  the  public  papers ;  I  think  he  feels 
these  things  more  than  any  other  person  I  ever 
met  with." 

The  children  who  know  only  the  Washington  of  the 
schools,  the  men  and  women  who  know  only  the 
Washington  of  purest  patriotism  and  inestimable  ser- 
vices to  his  country,  will  receive  less  credulously  the 
criticisms,  and  will  judge  less  harshly  the  statesmen 
of  our  time,  if  they  know  that  every  day  of  Wash- 
ington's eight  years  as  president  was  made  heavy 
with  personal  slander  and  political  abuse.  He  was 
assailed,  say  the  historians,  "  with  such  a  coarse  and 
brutal  atrocity  as  recalls  the  worst  days  of  Grubb 
Street;"  and  again  they  speak  of  him  as  "writhing 
under  villainous  calumnies."  He  was  accused  of 
seeking  to  set  himself  up  as  king ;  he  was  denounced 
as  a  tyrant  and  a    "  land   jobber ; "  and,  says  Jeffer- 


Fourth  of  July,  1900.  45 

son :  "  In  the  agony  of  his  heart  he  declared  that 
he  would  rather  be  in  his  grave  than  in  his  present 
situation." 

We  know  the  Washington  of  the  Farewell  Address, 
but  we  know  not  that  public  which  read  and 
approved  in  the  closing  days  of  his  service  such  para- 
graphs as  these  from  noted  political  publications  of 
the  time  : 

"  The  cloud  with  which  the  George  of  America 
has  covered  himself  has  been  large  enough  to  hide 
his  own  want  of  merit  and  that  of  others  whom  he 
has  placed  in  office.  But  when  it  drops,  all  will  be 
exposed  together.  A  country  which  has  fought 
above  seven  years  to  expel  a  king  cannot  be  per- 
suaded to  receive  one  by  surprise." 

And  again  : 

"If  ever  there  was  a  period  of  rejoicing  this  is 
the  moment  —  every  heart  in  unison  with  the  free- 
dom and  happiness  of  the  people  ought  to  beat  high 
with  exultation  that  the  name  of  Washington  from 
this  day  ceases  to  give  a  currency  to  a  political  in- 
iquity, and  to  legalize  corruption." 

Lincoln,  dead  but  thirty-five  years,  is  wrapped 
already  in  clouds  of  sentimental  fancies.  He  saved 
the  Republic  as  truly  as  Washington  founded  it ;  he 
ranks  with  Washington  in  patriotism,  statesmanship 
and  public  services ;  he  was  the  victim,  as  Washing- 
ton was,  of  untiring  malice,  slander  and  false  criti- 
cism.    But  Lincoln   besides  was  a  politician  in  every 


46  Oration. 

sense,  from  the  day  of  his  first  vote  in  the  back- 
woods of  Illinois  to  the  hour  of  his  death  as  Presi- 
dent in  the  national  capital.  He  grasped  the  large 
affairs  of  politics,  as  Washington  did,  but  he  fingered 
as  well  the  smallest  and  pettiest  —  caucuses,  con- 
ventions, post  offices,  "  sjooils."  Lincoln  was  not  of 
quick  growth.  In  the  eyes  of  the  people  he  is 
first  the  backwoods  boy  reading  in  a  cabin  by  the 
light  of  a  pine-knot ;  then  suddenly  the  statesman  and 
victor  in  the  great  debate  with  Douglas.  The  people 
know  little  of  the  thirty  years  between,  years  in 
which  Lincoln  learned  and  practised  every  political 
art,  and  schooled  himself  in  the  tact,  the  knowledge 
of  human  frailties  and  the  mastery  of  men's  meaner 
motives,  without  which  his  fateful  administration 
would  have  closed  in  disgrace  to  himself  and  disaster 
to  his  country. 

I  know  the  theory  which  dreamers  in  politics  hold 
and  fondle,  that  always  and  in  many  places,  hidden 
from  the  sight  of  the  people,  but  awaiting  their  call, 
live  elderly  gentlemen  of  dignity  and  scholarship, 
proudly  ignorant  of  political  affairs  and  uncorrupted 
by  their  touch,  advocates  of  public  policies  and 
methods  alike  unimpeachable  and  unworkable,  who 
might  emerge  at  a  word  of  encouragement,  and  rise 
in  a  day  to  the  highest  achievements  of  statesman- 
ship. If  such  men  exist,  the  American  people  never 
yet  have  found  them,  and  I  fear  they  must  be 
classed    with     physicians   of     surpassing     skill,    who 


Fourth  of  July,  1900.  47 

never  studied  medicine,  with  eminent  but  uncalled 
jurists,  neglected  ornaments  of  the  Supreme  Court 
Bench,  who  never  practised  law.  Statesmanship  is 
politics  clarified  and  magnified,  and  men  must  learn 
to  walk  in  politics  before  they  can  run  in  statesman- 
ship. I  recall  no  exception,  unless  perhaps  in  the 
dazzling  entrance  upon  public  careers  of  certain  ma- 
ture and  fortunate  senators  of  the  United  States, 
but  little  loved,  however,  in  Massachusetts. 

The  statesmanship  of  Abraham  Lincoln  the  Presi- 
dent was  built  upon  the  politics  of  "  Abe "  Lincoln 
of  the  backwoods  caucus  and  the  country  hustings. 
It  was  the  training  and  experience  of  his  whole  life, 
not  a  sudden  emergence  from  obscurity  into  great- 
ness, that  made  it  possible  for  Lincoln  to  succeed 
where  Washington  himself,  stately,  obstinate,  rigid, 
I  firmly  believe  would  have  failed.  Men  under 
middle  age  who  do  not  read  history,  older  men  who 
have  forgotten,  and  all  our  children,  carry  in  their 
minds  a  picture  of  Lincoln  fighting  the  battle  for 
union  backed  by  the  united  North,  sustained  by  the 
unshaken  confidence  of  his  party,  and  wrapped  in  a 
cloud  of  patriotism,  reverence  and  hero  worship. 
Alas  and  alas,  if  they  but  knew  the  whole  truth !  I 
cannot  tell  it  here,  but  I  can  say  that  no  President 
before  or  since  has  suffered  as  he  suffered,  through 
personal  slander  and  public  lampooning,  from  the 
slurs  and  accusations  of  the  many  factions  of  the 
time,  from  the  self-will  and  vanity,  the  coldness,  the 


48  Oration. 

treachery,  the  open  hostility  of  men  of  his  own  party 
and  even  of  his  own  Cabinet. 

In  that  horrible  battle  summer  of  1864,  when 
often  for  days  at  a  time  the  fighting  armies  lost 
men  at  the  rate  of  a  regiment  an  hour,  when 
treason  and  despair  were  growing  in  the  North,  and 
peace  at  any  sacrifice  was  the  cry  of  tens  of  thou- 
sands of  loyal  but  timid  men,  when  the  end  of  Lin- 
coln's Government,  as  we  see  now  so  clearly,  meant 
the  destruction  of  the  Union,  then  it  was  that 
Lincoln  was  plotted  against  in  his  own  party  by 
the  pure-minded  and  the  patriotic  as  well  as  the 
selfish  and  the  disloyal.  His  own  Secretary  of  the 
Treasury  left  the  Cabinet  to  contest  the  renomina- 
tion  of  his  chief;  a  " Union"  Convention  put  Gen- 
eral Fremont  in  the  field  as  a  hostile  candidate ;  and 
from  few  sources  except  from  the  plain  people 
themselves,  God  bless  them,  came  a  word  of  hope 
or  affection.  That  was  a  time  of  which  he  himself 
afterward  wrote :  "  When  as  yet  we  had  no  adver- 
sary and  seemed  to  have  no  friends." 

The  strangest  passage  in  the  history  of  larger 
American  politics  came  in  August,  1864,  two  months 
after  the  renomination  of  Lincoln.  It  was  a 
movement  by  some  of  the  leaders  of  his  own  party 
to  force  or  to  persuade  him  to  withdraw.  Among 
those  who  were  openly  active  were  Senator  Wade, 
Henry  Winter  Davis,  Horace  Greeley  of  the  "New 
York    Tribune,"   William   Cullen    Bryant,  the   editors 


Fourth  of  July,  1900.  49 

of  the  "New  York  Independent,"  "Cincinnati  Ga- 
zette," and  other  party  newspapers,  and,  won- 
derful to  us  of  Massachusetts  to-day,  John  A. 
Andrew.  Thaddeus  Stevens,  the  party  leader  in 
Congress,  was  in  sympathy  with  the  attempt, 
though  not  active,  and  so  was  Sumner,  who 
explained  to  Cobden  thus  :  "  You  understand  that 
there  is  a  strong  feeling  among  those  who  have 
seen  Mr.  Lincoln  in  the  way  of  business  that  he 
lacks  practical  talent  for  his  important  place.  It 
is  thought  that  there  should  be  more  readiness, 
and  also  more  capacity  for  government."  The 
movement  failed  through  the  fatal  blunder  of 
the  opposition  platform,  and  because  Atlanta  was 
captured  by  Sherman  and  Mobile  by  Farragut. 

A  little  later  William  Cullen  Bryant,  then  editor  of 
the  "New  York  Evening  Post,"  wrote  to  John  M.  Forbes 
of  Boston :  "  I  am  so  utterly  disgusted  with  Lin- 
coln's behavior  that  I  cannot  muster  respectful  terms 
in  which  to  write  to  him."  We  believe  now  that  the 
man  who  blacked  Bryant's  boots,  or  washed  his  win- 
dows or  held  his  horse  the  day  he  wrote  those  words, 
knew  Lincoln  better  and  saw  more  clearly,  through 
faith  and  courage  and  loyalty,  than  his  master  with 
jaundiced  eyes  and  a  twisted  intelligence.  Mr.  Forbes 
himself,  a  great  Boston  merchant  who  had  offered 
more  and  done  more  for  the  Union  than  perhaps  any 
other  private  citizen  of  the  United  States,  wrote  often 
of  Lincoln  in  language  of  distrust  and  even  contempt. 


50  Oration. 

A  letter  written  in  March,  1865,  to  John  A.  Andrew, 
addresses  Andrew  as  "  a  man  leading  the  war  as  you 
have  done,  fairly  leading  the  nation,  when  old  Abe 
has  lagged  and  drifted  along  with  the  current  you 
have  made."  Posterity  has  raised  these  men  each  to 
his  fit  and  honorable  place,  but  not  in  harmony  with 
Mr.  Forbes's  judgment. 

Grant  is  a  third  heroic  figure  that  will  stand  forever 
in  American  history  with  Washington  and  Lincoln. 
He  suffered,  as  they  suffered,  from  malicious  enemies, 
and  from  men  who  loved  justice,  yet  saw  in  him  his 
faults  alone.  Let  it  be  understood  clearly  that  the 
paragraph  which  follows  is  taken  from  a  speech  upon 
Grant  towards  the  close  of  his  first  term  as  President, 
delivered  in  the  United  States  Senate  by  Charles 
Sumner,  both  being  at  the  time  members  of  the  same 
party  : 

"Not  only  are  Constitution  and  law  disregarded, 
but  the  Presidential  office  itself  is  treated  as  little 
more  than  a  plaything  and  a  perquisite. 
Here  the  details  are  ample,  showing  how  from  the 
beginning  this  august  trust  has  dropped  to  be  a  per- 
sonal indulgence  where  palace  cars,  fast  horses  and 
seaside  loiterings  figure  more  than  duties ;  how  per- 
sonal aims  and  objects  have  been  more  prominent 
than  the  public  interest;  how  the  Presidential  office 
has  been  used  to  advance  his  own  family  on  a  scale 
of  nepotism  dwarfing  everything  of  the  kind  in  our 
history,  and    hardly  equalled    in    the  corrupt  govern 


Fourth  of  July,  1900.  51 

ments  where  this  abuse  has  most  prevailed  ;  how  in 
the  same  spirit  office  has  been  conferred  upon  those 
from  whom  he  had  received  gifts  or  benefits,  thus 
making  the  country  repay  his  personal  obligations ; 
how  personal  devotion  to  himself,  rather  than  public 
or  party  service,  has  been  made  the  standard  of 
favor ;  how  the  vast  appointing  power  conferred  by 
the  Constitution  for  the  general  welfare  has  been  em- 
ployed at  his  will  to  promote  his  schemes,  to  reward 
his  friends,  to  punish  his  opponents,  and  to  advance 
his  election  to  a  second  term ;  how  all  these  as- 
sumptions have  matured  in  a  personal  government, 
semi-military  in  character,  and  breathing  the  military 
spirit." 

Sumner,  lover  of  peace,  rests  in  the  rural  Mount 
Auburn,  whither  thousands  of  men  at  his  death, 
silent  and  grateful,  no  music,  no  banners,  no  martial 
display,  followed  his  coffin  on  foot.  Grant's  noble 
tomb,  kingly  in  splendor,  stands  high  on  the  bank 
of  the  Hudson,  the  roofs  of  the  city,  soon  to  be 
greatest,  already  rising  about  it.  Soldiers  young  and 
untried,  veterans  whose  marching  is  now  almost 
over,  turn  to  that  height  when  they  train  for  the 
battles  to  come,  or  flutter  the  flags  of  the  victories 
past.  In  the  river  below  the  guns  of  the  home- 
coming warships  are  heard,  and  the  vessels  of  trade 
salute  for  the  people.  The  lover  of  peace  may 
plan  and  prepare  and  arouse,  but  at  last,  with  a 
country    endangered,    a    race   to    be   lifted,    a    people 


52  Oration. 

set  free,  a  nation's  stern  work  to  be  done,  the 
soldier  and  sailor,  the  gun  and  the  ship,  must  take 
up  and  finish  the  task.  We  know  our  country's 
civic  strength,  her  moral  force,  her  love  of  peace ; 
we  see  her  rise  and  grow  and  prosper;  but  let  her 
lack  full  courage  for  defence,  the  power  ready 
ever  to  repel  or  punish,  and  surely  must  she  then 
become  the  fat  and  feeble  huckster  of  the  nations, 
the  easy  prey  of  robber  bands  that  ride  and  raid 
the  highways  of  the  world.  Our  country  needed 
Grant,  she  needed  Sumner;  from  each  she  drew  full 
measure  of  a  loyal  son's  allegiance;  and  in  their 
graves  and  in  the  graves  of  all  who  serve  her  well 
she  buries  deep  with  full  forgiveness  the  faults 
and  foibles  of  their  human  lives. 

I  have  trespassed  to-day  upon  strange  and  historic 
ground,  though  not  a  writer,  not  a  student,  only  an 
untrained  reader  of  our  country's  history.  My  work 
may  well  be  crude  and  clumsy,  and  yet,  I  trust, 
will  lead  aright.  I  have  invented  nothing,  perverted 
nothing,  discovered  nothing.  Old  facts  have  been 
turned  perhaps  to  new  and  needed  uses,  but  the 
facts  themselves  are  in  the  simplest  alphabet  of 
American  history.  I  have  named  no  living  leader, 
argued  no  political  question,  thrust  at  no  party,  sug- 
gested no  policy,  for  I  believe  that  our  strong  defence 
against  the  critic  without  fairness,  the  prophet  without 
hope,  is  the  clear-eyed  American,  whatever  his  party, 


Fourth  of  July,  1900.  53 

who  knows  our  past,  the  bad  with  the  good,  the  vices 
and  the  failures  ranged  with  the  virtues  and  the  vic- 
tories ;  who  knows  that,  stumble  though  we  may,  in  new 
and  rugged  paths,  the  Fathers  stumbled,  too,  in  paths 
unknown  to  them ;  who  makes  no  apology  for  the 
weak,  asks  no  indulgence  for  the  wicked;  who  would 
strengthen  the  critic  of  fairness  and  knowledge  whose 
words  to  the  people  are  compass  and  warning ;  who  has 
gratitude  for  the  founders  of  the  republic,  admira- 
tion for  their  work,  respect  for  their  laws  and 
traditions ;  whose  reverence  is  not  for  the  seal  of  a 
century  past,  but  for  justice  immortal  and  wisdom 
abreast  with  mankind. 

The  past  we  judge  by  its  rounded  work,  the 
present  we  see  in  its  feverish  action.  The  critic 
stands  on  the  finished  bridge  that  spans  the  river, 
stirred  by  its  beauty,  confident  in  its  strength,  grate- 
ful to  its  builders.  Below  him  on  the  bank  a  new 
and  greater  work  is  rising.  He  sees  the  groveling 
dredge,  the  clamorous  pump,  the  oozing  mud,  the 
black  and  spouting  water;  he  watches  where  grimy 
men  climb  to  and  fro,  where  the  caisson  rocks,  where 
timbers  crack  and  mighty  stones  lie  waiting.  He 
thrills  with  the  chaos  and  warms  to  the  staggering 
men,  for  he  knows  that  every  inch  of  that  reeking 
bottom  is  measured,  every  plunge  of  the  dredge, 
every  throb  of  the  pump  is  counted  ;  he  knows  that 
in  quarry  or  mill  each  stone  was  cut,  each  timber 
hewn   to  fit    its   lodgement  in   the   running   stream; 


54  Okation. 

and  he  knows  that  somewhere  calm-eyed  engineers 
are  studying  plans  which  picture  the  work  to  the 
last  hammer  stroke  and  the  minutest  atom.  The 
government  of  a  nation  is  beyond  the  reach  of 
such  precision,  but  the  critic  who  trusts  so  much  to 
science  in  the  midst  of  chaos  should  yield  some- 
thing to  the  men  who  struggle  in  his  sight  with  the 
burdens  of  the  people. 

With  a  dim  past  and  a  vivid  present,  a  past 
wrapped  in  the  vestments  of  tender  tradition,  crowned 
with  our  gratitude,  purified  by  charity,  sanctified  by 
death,  and  a  present,  naked,  accused,  defiled,  striving 
before  us  to  carry  its  burdens  and  conquer  its  tasks 
—  between  such  a  past  and  such  a  present  just  judg- 
ment can  be  given  only  in  the  knowledge  and  the 
light  of  that  law  which  has  ruled  from  the  begin- 
ning and  must  rule  to  the  end,  the  law  of  progress 
through  conflict,  everywhere  through  conflict,  always 
through  conflict. 

I  believe  that  the  patriotism  of  the  fathers  is 
matched  in  the  patriotism  of  the  sons.  I  believe 
that  our  country,  its  government,  its  people  and  its  pub- 
lic servants  are  wiser  and  stronger  than  ever  before. 
I  believe  that  the  feeble  union  of  States  which  the 
fathers  created,  halting,  doubting,  fearing,  through 
contest  and  compromise,  but  gloriously  after  all  — 
that  the  country  which  has  grown  four-fold  in  size, 
twenty-fold     in    population    and    a    hundred-fold    in 


Foueth  of  July,  1900.  55 

wealth  is  guided  more  prudently,  is  guarded  more 
effectively,  and  can  see  before  it  a  brighter  assurance 
for  the  future  than  the  little  republic  which  began 
its  doubtful  career  toward  the  close  of  the  last 
century. 

I  know  that  this  is  not  the  mood  and  these  are 
not  the  words  that  are  looked  for  in  Faneuil  Hall 
on  Independence  Day.  I  know  that  the  easy  fash- 
ion is  to  glorify  the  fathers  and  chide  the  sons. 
But  I  believe  that  no  men  in  history  can  better 
bear  the  truth  than  the  men  whose  deeds  we  here 
commemorate ;  I  believe  that  the  present  has  a 
better  right  to  justice  than  the  past  to  glorification, 
and  when  the  issue  comes,  as  come  it  has,  between 
the  dead  past,  with  its  finished  work  a  thousand- 
fold rewarded,  and  the  living  present,  laboring  under 
heavy  burdens  and  wounded  by  slander,  I  stand 
with  the  present  and  its  unborn  child,  the  fateful 
future. 


A     LIST 


BOSTON     MUNICIPAL    ORATORS. 


By   C.    W.    ERNST. 


BOSTON     ORATORS 

Appointed  by  the  Municipal  Authorities. 


For  the  Anniversary  of  the  Boston  Massacre,  March  5,  1770. 

Note.  —  The  Eifth-of-March  orations  were  published  in  handsome  quarto  editions, 
now  very  scarce ;  also  collected  in  book  form  in  1780,  and  again  in  1807.  The  oration 
of  1776  was  delivered  in  Watertown. 

1771.  —  Lovell,  James. 

1772.  — Warren,  Joseph.2 

1773.  —  Church,  Benjamin^ 

1774.  —  Hancock,  John.3,2 

1775.  — Warren,  Joseph. 

1776.  — Thacher,  Peter. 
1777. — Hichborn,  Benjamin. 

1778.  — Austin,  Jonathan  Williams. 

1779.  —  Tudor,  William. 
1780. — Mason,  Jonathan,  Jun. 
1781. — Dawes,  Thomas,  Jun. 

1782.  — Minot,  George  Richards. 

1783.  —Welsh,  Thomas. 


For  the  Anniversary  of  National  Independence,  July  4,  1776. 

Note.— A  collected  edition,  or  a  full  collection,  of  these  orations  has  not  been 
made.  For  the  names  of  the  orators,  as  officially  printed  on  the  title  pages  of  the 
orations,  see  the  Municipal  Register  of  1890. 

1783.  —  Warren,  John.1 
1784. — Hichborn,  Benjamin. 
1785.  —  Gardner,  John. 

a  Reprinted  In  Newport,  R.I.,  1774,  8vo.,  19  pp. 

b  A  third  edition  was  published  in  1773. 

1  Reprinted  in  Warren's  Life.  The  orations  of  1783  to  1786  were  published  in  large 
quarto  ;  the  oration  of  1787  appeared  in  octavo ;  the  oration  of  1788  was  printed  in  small 
quarto ;  all  succeeding  orations  appeared  in  octavo,  with  the  exceptions  stated  under 
1863  and  1876. 


60  Appendix. 

1786.  — Austin,  Jonathan  Loring. 

1787.  — Dawes,  Thomas,  Jun. 
1788. — Otis,  Harrison  Gray. 

1789.  —  Stillman,  Samuel. 

1790.  — 'Gray,  Edward. 

1791.  —  Crafts,  Thomas,  Jun. 
1792. — Blake,  Joseph,  Jun.2 
1793. — Adams,  John  Quincy.2 
1794.  — Phillips,  John. 
1795. — Blake,  George. 

1796.  —  Lathrop,  John,  Jun. 

1797.  —  Callender,  John. 

1798.  —  Quincy,  Josiah.2'3 

1799.  — Lowell,  John,  Jun.2 
1800. — Hall,  Joseph. 

1801.  —  Paine,  Charles. 

1802.  — Emerson,  William. 

1803.  —  Sullivan,  William. 
1804. — Danforth,  Thomas.2 

1805.  —  Dutton,  Warren. 

1806.  —  Channing,  Francis  Dana.4 

1807.  —  Thacher,  Peter.2'  5 

1808.  —  Ritchie,  Andrew,  Jun.2 

1809.  —  Tudor,  William,  Jun.2 
1810. — Townsend,  Alexander. 

1811.  —  Savage,  James.2 

1812.  —  Pollard,  Benjamin.4 

1813.  —  Livermore,  Edward  St.  Loe. 

3  Passed  to  a  second  edition. 

3  Delivered  another  oration  in  1826.  Quincy' s  oration  of  1798  was  reprinted,  also, 
in  Philadelphia. 

4  Not  printed. 

eOn  February  26,  1811,  Peter  Thacher's  name  was  changed  to  Peter  Oxenbridge 
Thacher.  (List  of  Persons  whose  Names  have  been  Changed  in  Massachusetts,  1780- 
1892,  p.  21.) 


Appendix.  61 

1814.  —  Whitwell  ,  Benjamin  . 
1815. — Shaw,  Lemuel. 

1816.  —  Sullivan,  George.2 

1817.  — »  Channing,  Edward  Tyrrel. 

1818.  —  Gray,  Francis  Calley. 
1819. — Dexter,  Franklin. 
1820.  —  Lyman,  Theodore,  Jun. 
1821. — Loring,  Charles  Greely.2 

1822.  —  Gray,  John  Chipmam. 

1823.  —  Curtis,  Charles    Peliiam.2 

1824.  —  Bassett,  Francis. 

1825.  —  Sprague,    Charles.6 

1826.  —  Quincy,  Josiah.7 

1827.  —  Mason,  William  Powell. 

1828.  —  Sumner,  Bradford. 

1829.  — Austin,  James  Trecothick. 

1830.  —  Everett,  Alexander  Hill. 

1831.  —  Palfrey,  John  Gorham. 

1832.  — Quincy,  Josiah,  Jun. 

1833.  — Prescott,  Edward  Goldsborough. 
1834. — Fay,  Richard  Sullivan. 

1835. — Hillard,  George  Stillman. 

1836.  —  Kinsman,  Henry  Willis. 

1837.  —  Chapman,  Jonathan. 

1838. — Winslow,  Hubbard.  "The  Means  of  the  Per- 
petuity and  Prosperity  of  our  Republic." 

1839. — Austin,  Ivers  James. 

1840. — Power,  Thomas. 

1841. — Curtis,  George  Ticknor.8  "  The  True  Uses  of 
American  Revolutionary  History."8 

1842. — Mann,  Horace.9 

c  Six  editions  up  to  1831.    Reprinted  also  in  his  Life  and  Letters. 

7  Reprinted  in  Ins  Municipal  History  of  Boston.    See  1798. 

8  Delivered  another  oration  in  18C2. 

9  There  are  five  or  more  editions ;  only  one  by  the  City. 


62  Appendix. 

1843. — Adams,  Charles  Francis. 

1844.  —  Chandler,  Peleg  Whitman.      "The  Morals  of 

Freedom." 
1845. — Sumner,  Charles.10     "The  True    Grandeur   of 

Nations." 
1846. — Webster,   Fletcher. 
1847. — Cary,  Thomas  Greaves. 
1848.  — Giles,  Joel.      "Practical  Liberty." 
1849. — Greenough,  William  Whitwell.      "The  Con- 
quering Republic." 
1850.  —  Whipple,    Edwin   Percy.11     "Washington   and 

the  Principles  of  the  Revolution." 
1851. — Russell,  Charles  Theodore. 
1852. — King,  Thomas  Starr.1'2     "The  Organization  of 

Liberty  on  the  Western  Continent."12 
1853. — Bigelow,  Timothy.18 
1854.  —  Stone,    Andrew    Leete.2     "The    Struggles    of 

American  History." 
1855. — Miner,  Alonzo  Ames. 
1856. — Parker,    Edward    Griffin.      "The  Lesson    of 

'76  to  the  Men  of  '56." 
1857. — Alger,  William  Rounseville.14     "  The  Genius 

and  Posture  of  America." 
1858. — Holmes,  John  Somers.2 

1859.  —  Sumner,  George.15 

1860.  —  Everett  ,  Edward  . 

1861.  —  Parsons,  Theophilus. 

1862.  —  Curtis,  George  Ticknor.8 
1863. — Holmes,  Oliver  Wendell.10 
1864. — Russell,  Thomas. 

10  Passed  through  three  editions  in  Boston  and  one  in  London,  and  was  answered 
in  a  pamphlet,  Remarks  upon  an  Oration  delivered  by  Charles  Sumner  ....  July 
4th,  1845.  By  a  Citizen  of  Boston.  See  Memoir  and  Letters  of  diaries  Sumner,  by 
Edward  L.  Pierce,  vol.  ii.  337-384. 

11  There  is  a  second  edition.     (Boston :  Ticknor,  Reed  &  Fields.    1850.    49  pp.  T2°.) 
i2  First  published  by  the  City  in  1892. 

13  This  and  a  number  of  the  succeeding  orations,  up  to  1861,  contain  the  speeches, 
toasts,  etc.,  of  the  City  dinner  usually  given  in  Faneuil  Hall  on  the  Fourth  of  July. 


Appendix.  63 

1865. — Manning,     Jacob      Merrill.        "Peace    under 
Liberty."2 

1866.  —  Lothrop,  Samuel  Kirkland. 

1867.  —  Hepworth,  George  Hughes. 

1868.— Eliot,  Samuel.     "  The  Functions  of  a  City." 
1869. — Morton,  Ellis  Wesley. 
1870. — Everett,  William. 

1871.  —  Sakgent,  Horace  Binney. 

1872.  — Adams,  Charles  Francis,  Jun. 

1873. — Ware,  John  Fothergill  Waterhouse. 
1874. — Frothingham,  Richard. 

1875. — Clarke,  James  Freeman.     "  Worth  of  Republi- 
can Institutions." 

1876.  —  Winthrop,  Robert  Charles.17 

1877.  —  Warren,  William  Wirt. 

1878.  —  Healy,  Joseph. 

1879.  —  Lodge,  Henry  Cabot. 

1880.  —  Smith,  Robert  Dickson.18 

1881.  —  Warren,  George  Washington.     "Our  Repub- 

lic— Liberty  and  Equality  Founded  on  Law." 
1882. — Long,  John  Davis. 

1883.  —  Carpenter,     Henry     Bernard.  "American 

Character  and  Influence." 

1884.  —  Shepard,  Harvey  Newton. 
1885. — Gargan,  Thomas  John. 

14  Probably  four  editions  were  printed  in  1S57.  (Boston:  Office  Boston  Daily  Bee. 
60  pp.)  Not  until  November  22, 1864,  was  Mr.  Alger  asked  by  the  City  to  furnish  a 
copy  for  publication.  He  granted  the  request,  and  the  first  official  edition  (J.  E.  Far- 
well  &  Co.,  1864, 53  pp.)  was  then  issued.  It  lacks  the  interesting  preface  and  appendix 
of  the  early  editions. 

is  There  is  another  edition.  (Boston:  Ticknor  &  Fields,  1859,  69  pp.)  A  third 
(Boston :  Rockwell  &  Churchill,  1882,  46  pp.)  omits  the  dinner  at  Faneuil  Hall,  the 
correspondence  and  events  of  the  celebration. 

lc  There  is  a  preliminary  edition  of  twelve  copies.  (J.  E.  Farwell  &  Co.,  1863.  (7), 
71  pp.)  It  is  "  the  first  draft  of  the  author's  address,  turned  into  larger,  legible  type, 
for  the  sole  purpose  of  rendering  easier  its  public  delivery."  It  was  done  by  "  the 
liberality  of  the  City  Authorities,"  and  is,  typographically,  the  handsomest  of  these 
orations.  This  resulted  in  the  large-paper  75-page  edition,  printed  from  the  same 
type  as  the  71-page  edition,  but  modified  by  the  author.  It  is  printed  "  by  order  of  the 
Common  Council."     The  regular  edition  is  in  60  pp.,  octavo  size. 


64  Appendix. 

1886. — Williams,  George  Frederick. 
1887. — Fitzgerald,  John  Edward. 
1888. — Dillaway,  William  Edward  Lovell. 
1889. — Swift,  John  Lindsay.19     "The  American   Citi- 
zen." 
1890. — Pillsburt,  Albert  Enoch.     " Public  Spirit.  " 

1891.  —  Quinct,  Josiah.20     "The  Coming  Peace." 

1892.  —  Murphy,  John  Eobert. 

1893.  —  Putnam,  Henry  Ware.     "The  Mission  of   Our 

People." 

1894.  —  O'Neil,  Joseph  Henry. 

1895. — Berle,  Adolph  Augustus.  "The  Constitution 
and  the  Citizen." 

1896. — Fitzgerald,  John  Francis. 

1897. — Hale,  Edward  Everett.  "The  Contribution  of 
Boston  to  American  Independence." 

1898. — O'Callaghan,  Rev.  Denis. 

1899. — Matthews,  Nathan,  Jr.  "Be  Not  Afraid  of 
Greatness." 

1900.  —  O'Meara,  Stephen.  "Progress  Through  Con- 
flict." 

17  There  is  a  large  paper  edition  of  fifty  copies  printed  from  this  type,  and  also  an 
edition  from  the  press  of  John  Wilson  &  Son,  1876.    55  pp.  8°. 

18  On  Samuel  Adams,  a  statue  of  whom,  by  Miss  Anne  Whitney,  had  just  beer 
completed  for  the  City.    A  photograph  of  the  statue  is  added. 

19  Contains  a  bibliography  of  Boston  Fourth  of  July  orations,  from  17S3  to  1889, 
inclusive,  compiled  by  Lindsay  Swift,  of  the  Boston  Public  Library. 

20  Reprinted  by  the  American  Peace  Society. 


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